Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a method for controlling the operation of a mobile terminal, and more particularly, to an apparatus and method for controlling the operation of a mobile terminal using a sensor which is disposed on the mobile terminal.
Description of the Related Art
Mobile terminals such as cellular phones have recently been developed to integrate and merge the functions of various electronic products, in addition to providing the functions of voice calls, and transmission and reception of text messages. For example, mobile phones which function as an MP3 player, a digital camera, an electronic dictionary, a digital TV, etc. are being developed.
Along with an increase in functions of a mobile terminal, extra components (for example, buttons) for executing the functions are added. However, when the number of buttons of a mobile terminal increases, users find it more difficult to rapidly select a button to execute a desired function or to rapidly set a desired function.
Meanwhile, instead of selecting a specific function by pressing a button of a mobile terminal, a method of displaying a Graphic User Interface (GUI) on a screen of the mobile terminal and allowing a user to select a specific function through the GUI has been proposed. However, in the method, since part of the screen of the mobile terminal should be used to display the GUI, users may have difficulties in recognizing all information displayed on the screen of the mobile terminal. For example, if a GUI for zooming in or out on a map overlaps part of a screen on which the map is displayed, there may be difficulty in viewing the part of the screen that the GUI overlaps.
Therefore, instead of allowing a user to select or set a specific function of a mobile terminal using a physical button or through a GUI, a new user interface that selects or sets a specific function by sensing a user's motion is required.